Background and Relevant Art
Electronic networking systems allow users to perform payment transactions with others via software applications on one or more types of devices (e.g., desktop devices and mobile devices). Some electronic networking systems allow users to perform payment transactions with other users (e.g., peer-to-peer payment transactions or peer-to business payment transactions). For example, some electronic networking systems allow users to enter into payment transactions to transfer funds to another user by way of an electronic payment application on a computing device.
Many conventional electronic payment systems allow users to register with a payment provider for transferring funds to other users. Specifically, conventional electronic payment systems integrate with payment providers using integration methods provided by the payment providers to allow users to transfer funds to other users who have also registered with the same payment provider or payment service. While many conventional electronic payment systems provide certain advantages, they also have various drawbacks. In particular, requiring users to be registered with the same payment provider to transfer funds can introduce inconveniences or difficulties. In particular, because there are so many different payment providers for engaging in electronic payment transactions, users often end up registering with multiple payment providers in order to transfer funds to a variety of other users. In some cases, some users end up registering with only a single payment provider, and thus may be unwilling or unable to engage in electronic payment transactions with certain other users.
Additionally, many conventional electronic payment systems are standalone payment services in which both the sender and the recipient of the payment must create an account specifically for the payment service. Due to the fact that conventional electronic payment systems have no other use outside of sending and receiving payments, it is often the case that two people are not needing to transfer a payment do not have an account for the same payment service. Thus, with many conventional electronic payment systems, the sender, recipient, or both have to go through a time-consuming process of setting up an account, causing the payment process to be inconvenient and burdensome.
In addition to simply setting up an account associated with a particular conventional electronic payment systems, the payment process that many conventional electronic payment systems use is burdensome and complicated. For example, many conventional electronic payment systems process a payment by sending a series of emails with links. Users must click on the email links to continue the payment process, such as accepting or denying a payment. Therefore, the payment processing steps are not intuitive and often cause user confusion. In addition, the processing steps are time-consuming and cause user frustration during the payment process.
Additionally, payment providers, regulations, and other aspects of electronic payment processes can vary based on the geographic location (e.g., country) and even the payment service of each user. For instance, certain geographic locations can have greatly differing requirements or processes for performing payment transactions. As such, transferring payment transactions in certain geographical regions can require payment systems to know and comply with the regulatory schemes and security requirements for each of the different locations and for each of the different payment providers. Conventional payment systems are often unable to provide payment transactions that have certain payment requirements based on the lack of infrastructure of the conventional systems and/or of the payment services. The foregoing issues are often magnified in developing countries where movement of money can be difficult and limit economic growth and development.
Accordingly, there are a number of disadvantages with conventional electronic payment systems and methods.